Reena

Does a newborn baby know that s/he exists? That's the kind of self awareness I'm talking about.

Newborn animal babies feel hunger and pain too, but are they self aware?

I think killing human beings (unless in self defense/just war) has to always be immoral, it is very hard to draw the line between human and non-human in the womb. Personally I think the unborn are always human.

drewjmore

In my experience with my daughter, I began to consider her self-aware around 6 months. It was about that time that she started making what appeared to be deliberate attempts to get attention, like fake-crying (no tears, stopped immediately when we arrived) after she awoke in the morning to get us to look in on her. Such awareness surely comes on gradually, so I'm all for granting an infant who survives through birth full human status.

According to WebMD, "Some babies can survive if delivered after the 23rd week." Thus, I'd be glad to compromise here, i.e. they are 'human' prior to birth, but not before the 23rd week. Frantic web-searches have not turned up the text of the court decision which sets a particular (and some say absurd: days, minutes & seconds IIRC) instant-in-time that a fetus can no longer legally be aborted.

From the same site, "Between 17 and 56 days the embryo is most susceptible to drugs, disease, and other factors that interfere with normal growth." This is the problem-- a mother who does/did not WANT to have a child has not taken proper care of themselves: there are things a 'mother' should do (eat, avoid, etc) to assure that her baby develops properly. What if she's still taking oral contraceptives? (I should google the effects of that...) What if she cleans a cat-litter box? (I will not post the pictures of the brith defect this can lead to...) If their behavior is going to harm the developing baby, such mothers probably should not give birth to these children, and I'm happy that they are not restricted from terminating unwanted pregnancies.

Anat

The ethical aspect should really be in the MFP forum. However, Reena, indeed there are philosophers who seem to be comfortable with the idea of infanticide by the parents within the first few months after birth. I guess they'd recommend a form of quick and painless euthanasia rather than abandonment in a dumpster. See for example When is a person? by James Park (deals mostly with end of life situations, but goes on to draw a parallel to beginning of life, also see more examples in his footnotes).